The organization of school supplies for transportation, storage and use continues to be a problem for students. Folders, binders and notebooks routinely have pages and materials crammed into them in an unorganized manner. The corners of notebooks, papers and folders are frequently damaged and torn. Folders are often significantly larger than the associated notebooks and papers and they cannot be accommodated within the binder and they do not stack neatly. In the binder area in particular, there is a continuing need to provide suitable products capable of conveniently carrying the ever-increasing quantity of materials which students seem to accumulate. While one solution to this problem is to provide ever larger binders, such large binders can be cumbersome and difficult to carry and do not account for those situations where a student does not need such a large storage capacity.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and advantageous to provide a binder which can be configured for increased capacity when needed, but which does not take up excess space when the increased capacity is not needed or used, and it would also be desirable to provide a binder with extra storage space which is easily accessible.
Several different binder designs can be used in conjunction with the present invention, such as a conventional design with front and back panels, a multi-fold case with front and back panels and an enclosing panel which is connected to one panel and folds at least partially over the other panel when the binder is closed, or a zippered case design with front and back panels which can be zippered together in a binder interior enclosing configuration.
In accordance with the broadest aspect of the invention, an expandable outside pocket is provided on one panel of the binder. This pocket is typically located on the outside of the back panel and expands to accommodate different items according to their size, with a releasable closure provided to control expansion of the pocket.
In one embodiment, the outside pocket includes a zippered gusset, where the zipper can be closed to prevent expansion of the pocket capacity. The gusset and zipper configuration enables the pocket to be expanded when it is desired to increase the size of the pocket in order to accommodate larger items such as books, but also enables the gusset to be held in a non-extendable position when the pocket does not need to be expanded, such as when the pocket is only used to carry papers or slim folders. A second zipper is preferably also provided in order to control access to the pocket.
In another embodiment, the outside pocket includes gussets along its sides which facilitate expansion of the pocket, and a single zipper provides access to the pocket interior when unzipped and also enables the pocket to expand when unzipped. The pocket can be expanded to provide simple access to the pocket interior, permitting convenient perusal of papers within the pocket without removal of the papers.